BRUSSELS: Website owners are free to store users’ Internet addresses to prevent cyberattacks, the European Union’s top court said on Wednesday, rejecting a claim from a German privacy activist who sought to stop the practice.
Patrick Breyer, a member of Germany’s Pirate Party, had sought to stop the German government registering and storing his Internet Protocol (IP) address when he visited its web pages, arguing that citizens should have a right to surf the web anonymously.
website owners routinely store users’ IP addresses to provide customised features, enable or disable access to content or to blacklist IP addresses involved in “denial of service” attacks against a website.
German law prevents website owners from keeping users’ data indefinitely unless the data is required for billing purposes, but the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) ruled on Wednesday that the prevention of cybercrime is a legitimate reason to store such data without users’ consent.
Websites free to store IP addresses to prevent cyberattacks: EU court
Websites free to store IP addresses to prevent cyberattacks: EU court
EU to suspend 93 billion euro retaliatory trade package against US for 6 months
- “With the removal of the tariff threat by the US we can now return to the important business,” Gill said
- The Commission will soon make a proposal “to roll over our suspended countermeasures”
BRUSSELS: The European Commission said on Friday it would propose suspending for another six months an EU package of retaliatory trade measures against the US worth 93 billion euros ($109.19 billion) that would otherwise kick in on February 7.
The package, prepared in the first half of last year when the European Union was negotiating a trade deal with the United States, was put on hold for six months when Brussels and Washington agreed on a joint statement on trade in August 2025.
US President Donald Trump’s threat last week to impose new tariffs on eight European countries over Washington’s push to acquire Greenland had made the retaliatory package a handy tool for the EU to use had Trump followed through on his threat.
“With the removal of the tariff threat by the US we can now return to the important business of implementing the joint EU-US statement,” Commission spokesman Olof Gill said.
The Commission will soon make a proposal “to roll over our suspended countermeasures, which are set to expire on February 7,” Gill said, adding the measures would be suspended for a further six months.
“Just to make absolutely clear — the measures would remain suspended, but if we need them at any point in the future, they can be unsuspended,” Gill said.
